Sunday, April 25, 2010

Sunday's Quote: Carpe noctem

I've been something of a night owl since my earliest days of college when I was allowed (per my "legal adult" status) to stay up past 10:00 p.m. for the first time.  Sheltered child or not, my new found freedom quickly became an abused privilege.

By age 20, the oncoming threat of an early class at Fogelman with an instructor who had less than a full grasp of our native tongue never once stopped me from staying out past 3:00 a.m. during the week.  So I suppose it's little wonder that my occupation over the previous five years doesn't get started until well after the Sun has set.

Entrained circadian rhythms became the main side effect of many late nights and early mornings that go back nearly a decade and a half.  Yet the opportunity afforded by these odd hours, if only to think and process a considerable variety of thoughts, has proven a blessing in disguise that has led, in part, to posts like the one being read right now.

Even when not at work, maintaining these hours in my personal life also allows for the embellishment of an increasing desire for aloneness.  Although I am anything but a hermit, I have become, nevertheless, an undependable social commitment with those for whom I was once automatic.  Instead of showing up as expected, I am now more likely to jump in my ride with a fully charged iPod and drive for hours, oftentimes ending up in different counties and even States (Arkansas and Mississippi).  Perhaps the quotes below explain why.

"When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign is Solitude."
-- from the fourth chapter of William Wordsworth's "The Prelude"

"Solitude offers a double advantage to the thinker: the first in being with himself, the second in not being with others."
-- François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), French writer and philosopher better known by the pen name, Voltaire

Seize the night indeed.

("Unsilent Night" © Dallas Observer, December 2009)

1 comment:

Mo said...

Some are just born to be night owls